Should you manager or lead?
The answer to this question is both, but we suggest managing with an iron fist for at least six months. It will take that long for your sales agents to self-manage. You want to micromanage salespeople until they prove they can hold themselves accountable.
This challenge is only for tough-minded sales executives who want to build a better sales team one agent at a time. Be mentally prepared because this is hard work, and there are no shortcuts. Be demanding and keep the pressure on for maximum growth with salespeople. This advice will save you months of wasted time and money, not to mention the heart-wrenching disappointment. Empowering people too soon is a very costly mistake.
If, after two years, you still need to micromanage an agent, that is the time to consider replacing them. If you keep mediocre producers on your sales team, your team will never improve. Keep raising the bar and replace marginal people.
Nothing will motivate your sales team more than to see familiar faces replaced. You’ll be amazed at the reactions and surprised at how people buckle down because of such leadership.
They have to trust you for this to work, and that takes time to create. Agents have to feel safe confiding in you. If they aren’t willing to be open with you, it’s because they think you’re not available to them or worse, that you don’t care about them.
Be open; be honest; be vulnerable and empathic. Most salespeople’s egos are fragile, and they need to feel good; they need to win and feel successful. A good manager’s goal is to find a way for agents to feel like winners!
Look your people in the eyes and, one on one, tell them you'll be micromanaging them. It is demeaning and disrespectful to micromanage intelligent people, but you have to do it to sort out which ones can perform independently and which ones won't.
Stick to your guns and review the following seven points at the beginning of each Performance and Projection Accountability meeting:
- Help them identify their 90-day financial needs.
- Help them set their sales objectives based on their needs.
- Celebrate their wins! They have to experience success to get that winning feeling.
- Get them to "buy in" to the fact that your job is to micromanage them for six months to a year.
- Tell them your expectations for them and their work ethic.
- Help them grow and learn the skills top producers use.
- Hold them accountable for their actions and the way they spend their time.
Your job isn't to be popular, but to be respected. Your job is to help your salespeople win and become more productive. They want to make more sales and earn more money to provide for their families and feel good about themselves. Attitude is everything. Their attitude!
